So "in one session" means they want me to play 50 matches without turning the game off??

"....or...you can just call me the soon to be crowned KING of this company!
DEAN AMBROSE is taking over the world! As of right now forget what you think you know about this industry,
because Dean Ambrose is about to blow the DOORS. OFF. EVERYTHING! SO WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!!!!"

Hey guys, I have been viewing this great site since buying my first new wwe game since WCW/nWo Revenge years ago. Of course, the specter of No Mercy looms over all Yukes productions, and wrestling games in general, that is nothing new. What suprises me is how close WWE 12 comes to winning the buried alive match finally.

Just a little about me. As you can likely tell, this is not my first rodeo. Longtime WWE and WCW fan, as well as interest in TNA, NJPW, AJPW, SHIMMER, and FMW. I spent many a weekend playing Royal Rumble for SNES, and No Mercy and Fire Pro D stole huge chunks of my life. Smackdown never did anything for me, though I did enjoy Day of Reckoning. Only recently did I test the next gen WWE waters with a $3 copy of SVR08 (with ECW!). I enjoyed it enough to get in on the ground floor with WWE 12, and I can say with conviction that I am happy, though significant room for improvement exists.

Some of the basic features available in this game are just light years ahead of what we had years ago. Downloading caws from a list of hot creations beats the hell out of printing formulas, and spending hours imputting them! The universe mode is an almost perfect management sim, with several glaring flaws. For one, I wish they had added in ratings for shows and PPVS. This would have REALLY spiced things up and opened oppurtunities for brand wars. I would have liked a financial model as well, but it isn't a big loss.

My two biggest pet peeves are the inabily is set up shows in advance, and the way rivalries are handled. As it stands you can manage each match for the most part, but I want to write a show at a time, a week of shows at a time, or even a year of shows at a time. Sure things would need to change based on the games excellent random story generation, but options are never a bad thing.

Rivalries are a lost opputtunity here. As it stands, it's more about creating relationships than actual wrestling feuds. The game should either track the intensity of a feud, and prompt you to end it at a PPV, or allow you to book an "end feud" match. I know you can manually end it, and trust me, that is fine, but the game just comes so close to being perfect for sim fans.

In terms of the actual gameplay, there are some odd mistakes. The announcee table in 2008 sdvr can be climbed up on, and the HIAC has a door, yet in WWE 12, we regress to no climbing on tables, and having to beat the side out of the HIAC, which is not accurate, and very DOR ish.

My final wishlist item is for THQ/YUKES/WWE to make WWE 12 a platform. What ths entails is having all dlc, created content, and your Universe file transfer to WWE 13. Rock Band is the obvious example of doing this correctly, with all DLC being a one time purchase. I don't mind paying the extra money for new suerstars, if it was once per wrestler instead of once per game. Patch the game to add 1-2 lines of specific announcer dialogue per wrestler, and everyone wins.

Anyway, I didn't want this to sound like a rant, the game is great, and is definitely up there WITH No Mercy and Fire Pro, maybe next year we can finally bury them.

Universe Mode is bugged as fuck. The goddamn "Today's Remarkable Matches" skipped the draft. They won't go away. Add that to the fact that you can only interfere in the shitty matches the computer makes and not your own, this years version still needs a lot of work. Plus, the stage of each Create an Arena is exactly the same. What the hell?

The game is just shit. They made such a big deal of how everything had been overhauled and rebuilt and it was all just a steaming pile of crap. The in ring gameplay is exactly the same as it has been since SVR 2008, the graphics still look like HD PS2 graphics, the lack of atmosphere/noise during matches is just beyond pathetic, the roster is poor, RTWM is abysmal, and don't even get me started on the absolute joke of an online service - community creations doesn't fucking work and the DLC is terrible.

THQ haven't made a decent wrestling game since HCTP, WWE need to find a new developer.